Bookshop numbers halve in just seven years

“The number of high street bookshops in Britain has more than halved in just seven years due to the rise of e-books and the consumer downturn, research for The Daily Telegraph has found.

According to data from Experian there are only 1,878 high street bookshops left in Britain. As recently as 2005 there were 4,000 bookshops on our high streets – twice as many as there are now.

Almost 400 bookshops have closed over the course of 2012 alone, a seven-fold increase in the number that shut in 2011.

The shops have closed due to the prolonged downturn in consumer spending, pressure from supermarkets, and the continued rise of websites such as Amazon, which sell both physical books and electronic e-books online.

New research from analysts at Mintel shows that British consumers spent £261 million on e-books this year, almost double the £138 million spent in 2011. At the same time physical book sales fell from £3.3 billion last year to £3.1 billion this year.

Authors said it would be a “tragedy” if high streets lost more specialist bookshops.”

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About The Author

Stephen Abram is a librarian and principal with Lighthouse Consulting Inc., and executive director of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries. He blogs on library strategies for direction, marketing, technology and user alignment.